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Topic: AFB..... Going to shake my hive (Read 4312 times)

Well I have AFB in one of my hives. The 2 DPI inspectors here for the state have so much on that they are unable to monitor what is happening and they tell me that AFB is throughout the state. They used to do annual compulsory testing of honey samples but this went by the board when (i imagine) AFB became endemic. Now nothing happens except that they tell you that you have to destroy the colony and have all timberware sterilized by radiation.

They also tell me that they can't tell me that is what I have to do (well they can) but there is no way they can monitor that I have done what they tell me.

So over the past couple of days I have read a lot about shaking the hive onto clean box, frames and foundation as a century old method of dealing with the disease. There has been a bit of recent research into the process and whilst there does not seem to be a claim to eradicate the disease it seems that the process is able to eliminate clinical symptoms.

Well. I have made a new deep, frames, foundation, bottom board and cover and tomorrow I will shake the bees into their new home as per the process suggested by Dave Cushman http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/shookswarm.html. I will destroy all comb and brood and have all my woodenware , tools, clothing and everything remotely associated with the bees irradiated next week. In the meanwhile I will confine the girls for a day to empty their stomachs of honey and feed them sugar syrup until new comb is built and pollen and nectar is coming into the hive.

I've never had AFB. I have seen it in other hives and the typical routine seems to be to burn it all. I'm not sure I'd do that. Here's the system you are referring to and it's been done for well over a hundred years:

This is from C.C. Miller's A Thousand Answers to Beekeeping Questions

"Q. You have written several plans for curing foulbrood. Now, if half of your colonies were diseased next spring, what treatment would you choose?

"A. If they had American foulbrood, I would use the McEvoy plan. If it was European, I would wait till perhaps the beginning of clover harvest, and first see that each colony to be treated was made strong by uniting or by giving frames of brood well advanced. Then I would remove the queen and give to the colony a ripe queen-cell or a virgin queen of best stock.

"Q. Can foulbrood be cured without destroying all the bees? If so, how?

"A. No need to destroy the bees; the disease is only in the brood. The McEvoy plan is generally used in curing. In the honey season, when the bees are gathering freely, remove the combs in the evening and shake the bees into their own hive; give them frames with comb-foundation starters and let them build comb for four days. The bees will make the starters into comb during the four days and store the diseased honey in them which they took with them from the old comb. Then in the evening of the fourth day take out the new combs and give them comb foundation to work out, and the cure will be complete."

I would strongly consider requeening after your shake-out. Because P. larvae is just about omnipresent in beehives, it seems likely that there is some environmental or genetic factor that contributes to a breakout.

I also wouldn't destroy my woodenware - just the combs. Spores will be very dense in the combs, but not on the surfaces.

As an addendum to my original post there are some additional difficulties that are associated with my project that I would appreciate advice on.

Today is the first day of winter here but our night time temperature never gets below 45of and our day time temp is usually between 65 and 70o so the girls fly all the time. There is a level of winter nectar and pollen for example my other 2 hives are bringing in heaps at the moment but I am aware that the shake out is going to destroy the AFB hive's stores and brood and feeding is going to be a must do until they are able to rebuild. Getting them through this time is going to be difficult but the poor alternative is to do nothing until spring when our nectar flows again. I have never had to feed my hives since I took up this interest 15 years ago so it is a new experience for me.

Your comments on how I should go about this will be appreciated as will any other advice.

Normally I would agree with you Bill about requeening however with our seasons being opposite to yours, queens are not available at the moment and I am reluctant to make the colony queenless as I think this would make the next 3 months even more difficult for them as they have enough to do to rebuild.

I dont have a queen excluder to put at the bottom of the hive to keep her majesty in the hive until comb and laying starts so I was wondering if there were other ways of keeping the queen from absconding.. perhaps lowering the height of the entry to say 3mm or 1/8". Would the other bees be able to exit and of course would queenie.

Well the job is done. The girls are in their new home. I don't know how happy they are about it but all the old frames comb brood and honey is gone and they have to now rebuild. I can't say that I saw her royal majesty but the girls were not in a hurry to vacate. I placed the new hive where the old one was and what field bees were out came back to the new box. I have locked the girls in for the next 24 hours to empty their stomachs and then I will start feeding them sugar syrup 2:1? until they start bringing in their own stocks. Luckily the other 2 hives are bringing in heaps of pollen and nectar so I hope that they will quickly access what ever is around. Being in the city there is always something in bloom plus some of the Aussie natives flower at this time of the year.

Interestingly they did not have a lot of honey in the hive (no more than a frame) but had instead a lot of brood of which 2 frames were infected with the AFB. I have to admit it was sad to destroy all that lovely brood. Compared to the other 2 hives which were bringing in stuff by the bucket loads and this hive was just keeping up.. perhaps as a result of the AFB.

Now I will get the box and all the goods and chattels irradiated and hopefully get some control over this situation. I just hope the girls cope with the all the things that have been placed in front of them.

The girls have now had 24+ hours in their new home. They have gone through a litre of sugar/water syrup since I put the jar on top this morning. Field bees are flying so I am assuming that queenie is still in the hive for the moment. Will take a peek in the morning to see what is happening. I am hoping that I see some eggs in partially built comb.

How many hives do you have? My first thought is that the risk that it would spread to other hives negates the benefits of saving this hive. Especially if you've got a good full hive you could make a split from to replace this colony.

I would have to agree with Sarg, I would get ride of the hive by burning, no reason to risk losing any more hive because of one, AFB can be spreed by your hands or even hives tools plus all hive equipment, no way I would use any of it again, instead of losing (destroying a single hive and equipment you may just lose them all plus all the equipment), some say you can torch the inside of the hive bodies but what a new hive body compared to losing a package of bee's when installing package in infected equipment, Ga state inspectors burn any hive's that are infected with AFB because it can spread from that single hives to hives all around, its nothing to play with, heres the UGA site on dealing with it. but you choose that just my way above!!

I had sugar syrup on the hive from when I shook it until Tuesday. I opened up the hive at that time and there was (and still is) a heap of syrup placed into comb hence the reason for taking the syrup away. There were eggs and uncapped larva there.

Today I had another look and there is still plenty of syrup in the comb, pollen coming in and now some capped brood so the girls and queeny are doing their jobs. I will check for sunken cappings in a few days time. A few shb that dont seem to be bothering the girls and I have a pretty small entry on the hive to help out the guard bees.

I have had all the hive equipment and tools sterilized by irradiation (kills cockroaches too) so I will pop the girls back into their box when I get the time.

I am off to NZ in a couple of days for an archery tournament so I am hoping to see a healthy hive with a growing population when I return on July 6. Gave them some irradiated honey over the past couple of days to see them over should they have problems while I am away. Even though it is winter here my other hives are going bonkers and I had to put a shallow super on one of them a couple of days ago. I expect that the field bees that had to become nurse bees again will welcome the change back to normal duties. :)